


Video Killed the Radio Star

by Ludovico_is_my_homeboy



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Masturbation, Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove Lives, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Billy Hargrove Tries to Be a Better Person, Billy Hargrove is a Mess, Bisexual Billy Hargrove, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Masturbation, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, No healing cock but some healing talk, Not an endorsement of using porn as therapy, Not quite gay panic but definitely some panicking gays, Porn Watching, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Protective Steve Harrington, Recreational Drug Use, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Seriously the boys need regular therapy, Sexual Dysfunction, Soft Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Steve works at the video store, Supportive Robin Buckley, Using Porn as therapy, Wingman Robin Buckley, it's only marijuana dad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:27:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29122644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludovico_is_my_homeboy/pseuds/Ludovico_is_my_homeboy
Summary: After the Battle of Starcourt, Billy is struggling to cope with his physical, mental, and emotional wounds. Depressed and desperate, he turns to some unconventional methods for healing and is forced to procure some naughty materials to help.Steve wants to know why no one ever told him that Family Home Video has a secret back room.AKA: Billy's sadness is effecting his libido, Steve works in a video store that may or may not also stock porn, and the boys bond through cuddles and talk-therapy
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 22
Kudos: 59





	1. You were the first one (you were the last one)

After the Battle of Starcourt, Billy Hargrove’s recovery progresses slowly.

The guy who came in to clean up after all the excitement, Doctor Owens, made up some story. He did this without Billy’s input or permission, didn’t ask before deciding to play the fairy godmother in this little tragicomedy.

Billy isn’t even convinced Owens is a real doctor, though he wears a white coat as he hovers at Billy’s hospital bed like some kind of angel of death (if the angel of death had thinning hair and a limp and always carried a stress ball in his pocket) and apparently has the authority to shoo away everyone – doctors, nurses, curious bystanders – who might want to ask for Billy’s version of events.

He gave Billy and all the other survivors of this far-reaching, secret war their roles to play in their little made-up tale.

They said it was a fire, or a gas explosion… it didn’t really matter… only somewhere in there, apparently, Billy fell on some exposed metal pipes and got fucking impaled.

That’s the story.

It was even in the papers. The Starcourt Disaster – totally boring, human, ordinary.

(And if the starfish design of Billy's wounds doesn’t look anything like the injuries one would get from a metal pipe, what does it matter? What lunatic would ever guess the truth when the fiction is so disgustingly palatable? Owens squeezes his stress ball and gently nudges another nurse out the door.)

Billy’s level of heroism – he was at the mall looking after Max, he saved a bunch of kids, he survived purely because of his human willpower and not at all because he was still partly an appendage of an eldritch nightmare monster from another dimension – changes with the telling. Bravery and culpability are traits assigned at random and none of it is particularly fair. Even the Mayor can't escape censure. 

Myth is interwoven with fact until the two are impossible to parse. Before long there are at least five different stories circulating and none of them are right.

That’s deliberate, according to some balding conspiracy theorist who came to visit Billy in the hospital when it was all over. He’d been there to visit someone else, another survivor of Starcourt (he’d probably come to see someone who was a hero, a good guy… not like Billy, who was just a monster’s chew-toy, a pathetic footnote) and looked irritated and defeated but also itchy with something important bursting to be said. He seemed eager for someone to talk to, and he made some good points.

Billy, desperate for any kind of lifeline to cling to, hadn’t kicked the older man out when he planted himself in his hospital room.

According to Murray Bauman (he gave Billy his card, unprompted), the disinformation campaign was part of a deliberate strategy used by Owens and the shady government department he represents.

If there’s not just one story to prove, then there’s not just one story to refute. And the story itself must be diluted like cheap booze, made more manageable and acceptable.

The truth becomes a nebulous thing, more rumour than reality.

Billy isn’t even the most important part of the story, to be honest, and he should be grateful for that… except that the most important part is that people are dead.

The Sheriff is dead. All those people the Mind Flayer liquified...

(All those people Billy helped murder...)

Billy finds, after ruminating on Bauman’s theories and the dark, terrible things he remembers from his time as the Mind Flayer’s puppet, that he doesn’t care.

He lays there trapped in his hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, and he doesn't care.

He doesn’t care about the story, or about whether he’s considered a hero or a villain or a victim.

He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care about a goddamn thing.

Why should he?

After all, Max is fine, and that weird (special, important, dangerous) girl, Eleven, is fine… everyone is fine.

Billy is fine.

No, no he’s not…

He’s in a catastrophic amount of pain from the moment he comes to in the ambulance, and then even when they get him to the hospital he can’t quite vocalize his agony because of the nature of his injuries, so he lays there on the gurney and spasms uncontrollably, his face a rictus mask as he swallows silent screams.

And they tell him it will be fine. The nurses and doctor yell and whisper and they look him in the eye and lie to him and tell him it will all be fine.

They tell him _he_ will be fine.

He passes out, wakes up, screams wordlessly, passes out again.

When he comes back to consciousness in the hospital, finally, days later, the pain has slipped into something more familiar. It is a deep ache that he welcomes because it is nothing like the feeling of being unmade by the Mind Flayer, which was like having a terrible acid slowly eating away at your insides.

This kind of pain is nothing new. It’s just physical. It is flesh and muscle, skin and bone, nerve endings firing off warning signals in the usual way.

(No. He can't say it, can't admit it to himself, but the truth is it’s not just physical. Something intangible has settled in like rot in his insides. There is something deep down, a black hole, a familiar, dangerous thing opening wide and threatening to swallow him whole. A deep, black pit of nothing, nothing, _nothing_ …)

Billy knows this kind of pain well.

He can live with it. This is _fine_.

Even the sight of Neil and Susan standing by his bedside, both looking for all the world like they’d both just swallowed the bitterest of lemons, can’t crack through the veneer of Billy-Being-Fine.

Just fine.

Slowly, slowly, things come back, until Billy is almost normal again.

Normal. Again. Almost.

He can sit up, and then he can stand, and then he can take a few halting steps across the room, and then he can shower without help. He takes heavy pain meds and does more physical therapy than medically recommended out of sheer stubbornness and tries his best to build his walls back up and soldier on alone.

Not that there are too many people hanging around to help him. His fifteen minutes of heroism don’t cancel out a world of indifference, and despite everything he is still something of an outsider in Hawkins. He's not a long-standing member of this close-knit community. He's not a novelty or a desirable object of lust anymore, so drumming up interest in his pain is a losing battle.

And besides, it’s not like he deserves care and affection right now.

Everyone’s got worthier causes to pour their time and energy into. Nobody cares about a… whatever he is. A villain? Certainly not a victim. Just a tool, really… a limb that’s been amputated.

Nobody cares about the useless, empty shell of a person that remains.

Well...

No, that’s not exactly true.

Max helps.

If Billy was still capable of being surprised by things, if he still had the energy to care, he supposes he’d be surprised by this.

They’ve never been close and tied up with that is the fact that Billy is so very _aware_ of Max now. Aware of how he’d struck her, thrown her into a wall, screamed at her, called her a bitch, tried to murder her and her friends.

And, yeah, he was possessed when he did that. But here’s the thing – would the Mind Flayer have chosen him if he wasn’t already ugly and cruel and rotten, deep down?

What if there are no accidents, no coincidences, and he was always actually supposed to be the enemy in someone else's story? What if he was always the monster? The sacrifice?

What if every awful thing that happened to him was richly deserved?

That’s the thought that haunts him now.

He’s very aware that he almost lost her. Almost lost Max.

Max seems to feel the same, because instead of being scared of him like she maybe should be, when he’s released from the hospital the little idiot follows him around the house, helps him to the bathroom, waits outside in case he falls in the shower (which only happened the once, but what an awkward, traumatic moment that was for the pair of them), and makes him food when he’s hungry and too sore and stiff to get to the kitchen himself.

(He wants to cry. He looks at her face all twisted in determination and uncertainty, and he sees a mirror reflection of himself, and he wants to cry. He wants to, but he’s too tired. He can’t cry. Hasn’t cried. Too tired. Too empty.)

They go on like they’ve always done, in a way… operating in a separate world from their parents, taking care of themselves, orbiting each other, together yet apart.

And now they also have a shared knowledge of that other world, and even though they don’t talk about it much, their shared history moves between them like a tangible thing.

Max tells Billy about things he’d missed before. About monster-dogs with mouths that open like flowers, about secret underground tunnels full of poisonous vines, about Billy interrupting a quest without meaning to, without understanding. About things he was only on the periphery of, a whole story in which he was only a clueless supporting character – and he can’t help feeling like he’s hearing it all too late.

Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had known but still...

He pops another pain pill, chalky and white, a gift from Owens. Something to keep him quiet and complacent. 

Too little. Too late.

(He thinks he should maybe be mad about this... be furious with someone. Hate someone for not stopping the Mind Flayer sooner, for not keeping all that agony from happening, for not saving him from all this pain. _Help me, save me, please, please, please._ He wants to be angry, but he isn’t. He isn't angry or anything else. He’s too tired. It is too late.)

July passes and August drifts by, and Billy is almost passing for normal again ( _normal. again. almost_.) except for a hitch in his step and some persistent breathing problems and a collection of thick, angry-looking, healing wounds turning slowly into permanent scars on his torso, and the nightmares.

He’s almost happy about the nightmares. They are the only times when he feels something like a real emotion.

(It doesn’t matter they keep him from sleep. Sleep is meaningless now. He can’t be any more tired than he already is.)

He’s grateful to feel something, even if the something he is feeling is horror.

He doesn’t realize the problem right away, on the first night it happens. He’s still in an exhaustion-induced limbo state in his head so he’s not as quick-witted as he usually is.

It's been well over a month and a half. He’s recovered enough that he can pretty much be on his own.

He’s recovered enough that he no longer has blessing of drugged unconsciousness. He’s recovered enough to be on new meds, again courtesy of Owens. He's recovered enough to have trouble sleeping all the way through the night, waking up terrified and crying more often than not.

He dreams of deadly steep stairs and the darkness of a warehouse basement. He dreams of rotten smells and soul-tearing violations and wide, innocent eyes begging him for help he can't give.

He stares up at the ceiling, wide awake. The clock on his nightstand says 2:13, but the number means nothing to Billy – he feels timeless, anchorless.

He feels empty and tired. He wants to sleep but can’t.

It is mostly out of force of habit, the familiarity of things done in darkness, that his hand drifts down and slips under the elastic of his boxers.

Fingers brush past wiry hair to grasp his cock. He distractedly teases the head and then strokes himself. He's barely even aware he's doing it… it’s such a careless, familiar thing. And, distantly, he thinks it might help him sleep.

Nothing happens.

He doesn’t get hard. Not at all. Minutes drift past in a haze before Billy realizes that he’s feeling nothing of note down there.

Not quite panicking, he tries more pointed movements. He reaches over in the dark and snags some lotion, squirts some in his hand and then reaches down again. His free hand finds his balls and caresses them. He tries all his classic moves: the tug, the twist, the stroke.

His cock remains stubbornly limp.

He gives up eventually. He chalks the whole thing up to just being tired.

Of course, the next time it happens it’s harder to pretend like he’s fine.

It’s late afternoon. He’s alone in the house. He should be having a nap, resting and recuperating.

The thought occurs to him that this is the longest he’s been without getting off since he hit puberty.

He flicks through his stash of porno mags, the ones he leaves out as a bluff and the ones he hides where his dad won't find them. He stands up and sits down. He stretches out on his bed and undoes the knotted strings of his sweatpants.

His hands find their place.

He closes his eyes.

_His hands grip cold metal bars. He needs to hold on. Something is gripping his lower half like a vice but if he holds on to the bars he won’t get dragged down into that dark, dank, rotten-smelling basement where the THING is…_

_Where the monster waits…_

He grips his cock and his movements are not at all what they should be. He’s holding too tight, bordering on painful, and tugging at his limp cock roughly, desperately, as his breathing tips into something dangerously close to hyperventilation.

His hands…

_His hands are clammy, slippery with (cum) (slime) (blood) sweat, and he can’t hold on to the metal railing._

_The tentacles tug. He loses his grip._

_He is pulled down steep metal stairs._

_He is so cold. So cold._

_So cold..._

_Heather screamed and cried and begged. She just wanted to help him. She screamed and cried and begged._

_Billy screams and cries and begs… nobody hears him._

He opens his eyes with a gasp and sits straight up in bed, the over-quick movement sending sharp waves of agony through him as he tugs at the still-healing holes in his chest.

It is in that moment, his chest heaving with fear, all pretense of pleasure evaporating, Heather's screams ringing in his ears, that Billy realizes he might be in trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be safe and healthy, lovely readers! <3


	2. Pictures came and broke your heart

It's been a while since the last time Billy felt this small.

Is that true? Well, let’s see.

He felt small when he was young, when he was trying to protect his mom from Neil’s abuse. Like the dictionary definition of weakness.

He felt small when she left. Small and confused.

He felt small when he was bullied, and then less small when he was the bully – although looking back, he isn’t sure that beating others up ever really helped that ache inside of him. All it proved is that 'small' and 'big' are relative, and that being big on the outside isn’t the same thing as feeling big on the inside.

(The last person he hurt that way - intentionally, with his fists and his rage - was Steve Harrington. Steve, who drove his car smack into Billy’s and saved him from becoming even more of a mindless killer. Steve, who probably saved Billy’s life, too, with that dumbass move. Actual-Hero Harrington, who got none of the credit after Starcourt even though Billy got all his sins whitewashed clean. Ain’t that a kick in the ass?)

He’d thought he’d successfully tabled memories of his brutal past, put them on a shelf where they belonged, but they are here and they remain, a lingering gift from that monster, the Mind Flayer.

All his sins, remembered.

(A good name for it... the 'Mind Flayer'. After, when Max told him what they’d been calling it, his first thought had been: _yeah, that’s right. That’s what it was._ )

When he was possessed these intrusive thoughts, playing on a loop, were a nice little ‘fuck you’ for Billy to watch over and over and over like so many VHS tapes as he screamed silently, trapped in his own mind. Helpless.

Small.

And now that he's 'free' they haven't gone away - they pop up and won't leave. So maybe it never stopped. Maybe he's still trapped, still screaming.

Maybe he never actually got away.

He felt small when he was dragged down into the basement, when he was lying on the ground underneath that thing as it clamped its ugly tentacle over his mouth.

He felt small facing the Mind Flayer down at Starcourt Mall, standing between it and the girls.

So, no… guess it hasn’t been too long since the last time Billy felt this small. Not really.

It’s still pretty awful, though. More, perhaps, then it should be, given his past experiences.

He is bundled up in thick sweatshirt, even though it’s still summer and it isn’t at all cold out. He is perpetually chilled these days, and also he wants barriers in place between his scars and the outside world. Another one of the world's great ironic twists - Billy Hargrove putting more clothes _on_.

He is wearing sunglasses. A lot of the time the world is too bright for him now. Unfortunately, it makes him looks a little shady, and he finds himself fiddling with them, debating whether to leave them on or take them off and just suffer through the headache that would result. He takes them off, finally, after some thought.

(He doesn't want to be seen. He doesn't want to be heard. He doesn't want to be touched. No, that's not true... he wants all of those things. He does and he doesn't. What he doesn't want is for everybody to confirm that he is no longer the person he was.)

He’s delaying the inevitable, now.

Normally he would have just asked Max for help. She gets everything else for him. He’s willing to let her run all his errands if it means he doesn’t have to leave the house.

(He used to be desperate to leave, to get away, to be free. He still wants that, but now whenever he takes a step towards the front door he goes panicky and cold and his muscles forget how to work. It’s fine. Totally fine. Max can get him what he needs.)

She can’t get him this, though.

He reminds himself, for what it’s worth, that he has no reason to be shy around people. He’s a hero according to the papers. They all think he’s some kind of good guy.

And even if they don’t think he’s a good guy… they don’t know what he really is.

They can’t know.

Surely, they can’t know. Nobody can look into his heart and see the truth.

He feels dirty, ugly, fracturing inside and out, but it’s not something anyone else can see.

Right?

The store is in a familiar kind of strip mall, and as he climbs out of his car – he’s had to shell out most of his savings to get the Camaro back in working order, although, like Billy himself, it still bears gruesome marks from the Battle of Starcourt – Billy is reminded almost viscerally of the days when he would drop Max off at the arcade.

He doesn’t do that for her anymore. She gets a ride from her friends. Just another way he’s dropping the ball.

_Almost back to normal._

_Hilarious._

He shuffles in the front door slowly, refusing to take up any more space than he absolutely needs to. The store looks blessedly empty, although his attempt at a covert entrance is interrupted immediately by the cheerful ringing of a bell and a bright, too-familiar voice calling out to him.

“Welcome to Family Home Video!”

Oh no.

_Oh, fuck…_

“How can I help… oh! Hi. Um…”

It is, without a doubt, the last person on earth Billy want to see here, now. Especially now.

“Harrington,” he mumbles, and sure enough there he is.

Steve Harrington is _here._ He is _here_ in this store that used to be a safe-ish space for Billy... and damn him, he’s as bright and beautiful as he ever was. There is still something that might be the tail-end of a fading bruise under one eye, but the summer sun has left honey highlights in his hair and majority of his skin is smooth and lovely and magically unscarred as always.

(He has often been the unwitting star in a not insignificant number of Billy's private fantasies, and this... this isn't helping.)

He is also wearing a uniform vest with a nametag on it, which means that further conversation is basically inevitable at this point.

“Bi – Hargrove. Hi,” a blush creeps up Steve’s cheeks. “It’s… it’s really good… hi. Um, how are you?"

Billy blinks dumbly back at Steve and the blush on the other boy's cheeks deepens.

"Sorry, that’s...," Steve shakes his head. "Sorry... a real stupid question. But, uh… seriously, how are you?”

Huh.

Right into the deep end, then.

It's not like Billy hasn't heard this question before. He has. A lot. However, the thing that really kills here is that Steve isn't saying it with the disinterested casualness that seems to define most of Billy's interactions these days... as if he is invisible and the other person is already looking beyond him, moving on from their conversation.

On the contrary, Steve seems genuinely concerned. Interested. Like he wants to know, like it effects him somehow, like he wants Billy to answer honestly and that’s...

That’s impossible.

“I’m fine,” Billy chokes out, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the sheer ridiculousness of that statement.

Billy knows that he must look like death warmed up – pale and gray and exhausted and greasy-haired.

Nothing like what he was. It is the contrast that kills... the old Billy is dead and buried somewhere in the graveyard of his marked and scarred body, just a ghost, a memory, now.

But he is sure that Steve is making the comparison in his mind in this moment, weighing this new version against the old and finding him wanting, and that hurts. It's stupid, but it hurts a lot.

 _I am not who I am_ , he thinks wryly, and then flinches inwardly at mentally quoting a villain.

“Right,” Steve says after a moment’s hesitation, unconvinced but accepting the assertion gamely anyway. “I mean… I’m glad. I've been meaning to check in on you and... it’s been… I’m really glad you’re okay.”

The words don't gel, don't make sense in Billy's head, and it takes him a moment to process what they mean and the genuine emotion that seems to be behind them.

“Why?”

The word is out before Billy can stop it, and once it’s out it hangs, heavy and impossible, between them.

Steve seems startled, almost shocked by the borderline combative nature of the question. His eyes go wide and he rocks back slightly on his heels, confused.

After a brief pause, however, his brow furrows and his shoulders go up. His gaze goes determined and thoughtful as he studies Billy.

As he _sees_ him.

Billy knows that stance, that determined look. He’s been on the receiving end of it before.

He feels something stir in him… barely there, just a twitch, a niggle.

Something like wariness but also curiosity. Then again, that was always the feeling he got with Harrington. He was always just curious, waiting, wondering what the other boy was going to do.

Even when they fought, even when Billy pushed and pushed and pushed, he was just poking the bear, trying to figure out who King Steve really is.

The next words out of Steve's mouth don't clear things up in that regard.

“I never wanted you to be hurt, Billy,” Steve says, voice soft and and maybe a little defensive. “What happened to you… I’m really sorry it happened. I can't imagine what that would be like, but I know Will... Will Byers, he went through something kind of like what you did. He's better now but he was... for a long time. And anyway, it's just... awful. What happened. The worst thing, really. You didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.”

Billy feels his stomach swoop dangerously, sees the dots on the edges of his vision swirl. In his mind's eye he sees walls collapsing, crashing down, burying him underneath the rubble.

_You didn't deserve that._

No.

That’s not…

That’s _not_ …

He can’t. No, that's not...

_I can’t! I won’t do it!_

_Please don’t…!_

Billy can feel his insides breaking, can feel the shaky structures holding him up caving in, and he decides right then and there that this can’t happen. Not here, not now. Not ever, if he can help it.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

He just needs what he came here for. He didn’t come in for a lecture or pop psychology or Steve fucking Harrington. He doesn't want understanding or acceptance or fucking _forgiveness_ and he absolutely doesn't want to even think about what Steve just said.

He just needs to get what he came for. Get it, get back to the car, go home. 

_Go back to your tiny little room so you can crumble to bits alone and in peace._

_I can’t crumble. I can’t sleep._

_I can’t feel anything, and when I do feel… it’s like dying._

_Like dying again._

“I’m…” Billy hesitates for a moment, but only a moment.

He is, frankly, too tired and desperate to be embarrassed, is too traumatized to be shocked, and has come too far to flake out now. He made it all the way out of his room and out of his house and down the road to this stupid video store with its bright lights and its chattering people.

He can’t go back now.

He needs to get what he came for.

“I need something from the back room,” he says, forcing his voice to stay steady and burying deep down inside of himself the words he should instead speak. The truths he needs to let out.

His request is enough, however, to turn the conversation on its head.

Harrington’s ‘salesman’ façade fades almost instantly into a look of confusion. He blinks twice and then shuffles slightly, folding his arms.

“Uh… back room?”

“Frank, the owner,” Billy explains through gritted teeth. “He lets me rent stuff from the back room. Is here here?”

“Ah, no, it's just me today, and Keith is on break. We... we have a back room?” Steve looks genuinely perplexed. Frankly, his unfeigned confusion and Billy's new physical limitations (and emotional exhaustion) are the only things keeping Billy from throttling him right now.

Still, Billy raises an eyebrow and Steve shuffles sheepishly, dropping his gaze.

“Sorry," the brunette runs his fingers through his long locks. "I just started working here, like, a week ago. What’s, ah… in the back room?”

Billy waits. He waits for the old familiar rage to flare up, the need to lash out at the world and at Steve Harrington in particular. Because Steve Harrington… he’s so goddamn stupid, so stupid, and he always has been, and really that’s the thing that drives Billy up the wall.

His beautiful house and his fancy car and his perfect hair and his girly lips and his honest sweetness and his fucking stupidity… walking around oblivious to the world’s horrors, never having to hide crucial pieces of himself away like Billy does… never needing to plant his feet.

_You planted your feet. It wasn't enough. You were still pulled down into the darkness._

Never planting his feet, and then being shocked, absolutely stunned, when someone bowls him over. Like he couldn’t possibly understand how the world could be so cruel, while cruelty is a cold, hard fact of Billy’s life.

_‘Nobody deserves that’… Jesus fucking Christ. Who are you trying to kid?_

_(I deserved it. I'm wrong, wrong, wrong... broken, and now it shows in my scars. I can't heal. I can't cry. I can't sleep. I (didn't) deserve it.)_

And of course, even that assessment is wrong, wrong... because Steve knew, didn't he? Because it turns out wasn't the stupid one of the two of them.

It was Billy, not Steve, who was the child, the idiot, the one who didn't know about the monsters. And all the while Steve was staring in the face of evil and _winning._ He was figuring it out and fighting and surviving in this new world.

All this time Steve Harrington was the hero, and Billy Hargrove was the villain, the victim, the nothing.

Billy waits for the anger, but it doesn’t come. There is a superficial feeling of frustration, but it doesn’t go any deeper. There is just something cold and heavy and resigned now. That's the only thing left behind.

Like his libido, the fury Billy could always count on to carry him through is gone. Wiped away by pain or depression or exhaustion.

If he could still feel things, he might feel something like despair at how numb he is… so numb that even Steve fucking Harrington’s stupid fucking face and stupid fucking “you didn’t deserve that” can’t get a rise out of him.

He’s in so much trouble.

Enough. Billy holds out his hand.

“Keys,” he says.

Steve blinks at him.

“Huh?”

Billy motions to Steve’s ring of store keys, dangling out of his front pocket.

“Keys,” he repeats, working hard to inject a little more authority into his tone.

Swallowing, Steve removes the keys and places them in Billy’s hand. Billy then hobbles (and there’s no other word for it, he hobbles, because even though he tries very hard to stay steady he can’t hide his fundamental physical brokenness... another thing for Steve to gawp at) towards the back of the store.

Steve turns around to check that they are alone in the store before following a few steps behind. Billy can feel his gaze on the back of his neck. He picks up the pace and they quickly come to a door that looks like it leads to a storage closet and is partially hidden behind a disused display case.

Remembering the times before with Frank, Billy selects a key with a purple fob attached to it and uses it to unlock the door. He reaches over to switch on the lights and walks in, Steve still trailing him.

It’s not much. It’s basically a small room with a bookcase in it, only the bookcase is full of VHS tapes Steve’s never seen before.

Billy doesn’t bother looking back at Steve, even though he is very conscious that the other boy is gaping at him like a guppy. He heads straight for the tapes and searches for the ones he wants.

Well… they don’t actually have the ones he really wants. If he wants to get his engine revving again there are films he’d prefer to watch, but they aren’t as widely circulated and even if they were they probably still wouldn’t have them in a town like Hawkins. Even in California you had to be careful.

The tapes themselves are battered and used, in blank covers with just the titles written on them, sometimes very clearly in magic marker. There are one or two more professional looking ones, but for the most part they look like contraband. Billy knows you need a special license to sell these kind of things, so he suspects most of the tapes probably are. 

He picks out his old standards, his compromise films. He picks one with a threesome – two guys and a girl, and the guys make out a little in the beginning – and one that’s a gang bang, so mostly men.

Another one he picks at random, hurrying because he’s conscious of Steve reading the titles over his shoulder and making increasingly incredulous ‘meep’ noises. It’s awkward and humiliating, and even in the haze of his numbness something like shame is creeping in. At this moment he’d even take Frank’s crude jokes and unwelcome leer over being in this room with a stunned and blushing Harrington.

Steve Harrington, the boy he doesn't understand, the boy he loves to hate... the boy he desperately wants to like him. The boy he wants to impress.

He knows he's not being particularly impressive right now. The fact that he's renting pornos is really just the tip of the iceberg.

"Has this _always_ been back here?" Steve ask, voice high and taut with bemused pseudo-outrage. "I didn't know about this! _Who else knows about this_?!"

 _Everyone_ , Billy thinks, small threads of amusement weaving their way inside (and that in and of itself is a small miracle). _Worst kept secret in town. Everyone knew but you, pretty boy. Popped your cherry with me, I guess, after all._

It's stupid. This is crazy. It's all so ridiculous, but still Billy endures.

He’s desperate. It's been so long and the initial worry he felt during his first failed 'sessions' has slipped into full-blown fear now, born of the growing conviction that he might never function that way again. That his physical pain and scars may now manifest in a whole new way, as permanent impotence. That the black hole inside draining him of his emotion and energy may one day wipe him out completely.

Skin mags, long showers, experimental play with things that should probably not have been used as sex toys (let's not go there again). Nothing else has worked.

He needs these tapes. They're the only thing he hasn't tried yet besides actual human touch (and he can't do that, can't let anybody see what he looks like now)...

He wants _this_ back. He wants to feel good, to have something that belongs to him and that isn’t just more pain. He wants very much to close his eyes and let the wave carry him away.

He wants to touch his own body and not hate it, not feel cut off from it, not feel like it’s a dirty, weak, strange thing belonging to some evil, repellent monster.

He wants to cum and he wants to cry and he wants to sleep. He wants to feel something again.

He wants to be himself again. 

He turns on his heel and brushes past Steve on his way out into the main store… only he doesn’t quite manage to do that without stumbling. Steve’s hand shoots out and lands on his arm, steadying him.

The gentle touch sends electric currents of relief and pleasure and tension through Billy. It's been so fucking long since he was touched that way. Steve removes his hand before Billy can shake it off.

When they get back to brightly-lit store and the front counter, however, they face another problem.

Steve, who has only just managed to get a grip on how the register works during his brief tenure here, doesn’t know if the rental prices for porn films from the secret back room he’s only just finding out about are different from normal movies. He also doesn’t know if the return dates are different.

He goes and stands behind the counter. He takes the videotapes from Billy and then stares at them. He puts them on the counter, then picks them up, then looks at Billy, then puts them down again.

Now it's the brunette's turn to feel his face heat and shame creep in, this time because his own ignorance is making the whole exchange that much worse. But he's had quite a shock, in his defense, and he's completely out of his depth here.

Steve doesn’t want to check the films out the usual way, with a scanner and careful records, so he takes out a sheet of notepaper from one of Keith’s notebooks and writes down the titles:

\- Hot and Horny Firemen 4

\- Lovely Lola’s Threesome Adventure

\- Naughty Babysitters Caught in the Act 2

Once finished, he stares blankly at the titles, written out in paper and ink in the vague hope that when Keith or Robin or someone much more astute than he comes in to start their shift he’ll be able to show them this and explain about the secret back room full of porn and ask what the hell he’s supposed to do about it.

He looks at the titles, and then up at Billy, who has a curiously blank expression on his face. So blank, in fact, that it can only be a mask, a wretched, plastered-on mask.

It suddenly seems horrifically wrong to Steve to have the names of the films there, on this paper, as evidence. As proof of Billy's secret wants and needs - needs that are not unique to him but which are kind of sacred nonetheless (Lovely Lola and her firemen friends notwithstanding). It seems like a cruel act of exposure, yet another casual humiliation inflicted on a guy who doesn’t deserve to be humiliated further.

A guy who has already been hurt in ways Steve can’t even imagine.

Steve doesn’t know when exactly this happened… when he stopped hating Billy and seeing him as a dangerous enemy and instead started seeing him as… well, as something else.

Maybe it was just now. Maybe it happened because of the breathless way Billy said ‘Harrington’ when he first came in, or because of the stunned, grief-stricken, broken look that crossed his face when Steve told him he didn’t want him to be hurt. 

Maybe it was when he asked, in that weirdly lost way, ‘why?’.

Or maybe it was before, when El told them all about the mind control, and the torture and pain, and left Steve feeling sick and terrible and strangely guilty for what had happened to this guy who was... well, still a jerk, but an innocent jerk. In no way deserving of this level of grief.

Truthfully, Steve never really saw the other boy as an enemy. Not really, not even when he and Billy fought (well, when Billy beat him up, let’s be honest). He was an obstacle, and he was scary, but Steve knows very well that there are bigger, more evil things out there in the world.

Steve feels a sudden, overwhelming wave of protectiveness for Billy... for the boy who seems strangely vulnerable and much too resigned.

No one is more surprised than Steve by this development.

Aware that Billy is watching him with that same horribly blank, not-quite-sad look, Steve tears up the paper and tosses the pieces in the bin under the counter. Then he looks up again and shifts uneasily under that watchful gaze.

He doesn’t care if he gets fired. He’ll never tell anyone about this, ever.

“I, uh… I don’t know how much…”

Billy wordlessly slides a crumpled ten-dollar bill across the counter before shoving his hands back into the pockets of his sweatshirt.

“Oh, right.” Steve picks up the note. “Um, I don’t know what the return times are on those, either.”

“Frank used to give me two weeks with them.”

Steve’s face scrunches up slightly in confusion. The maximum check-out for a film is usually a week.

Billy shrugs and Steve can’t help but see defeat written in the gesture.

“There’s only one VCR in my house. I need to make sure everyone is gone for the day or I can’t watch ‘em. I need… I need the time.”

“Right.” Steve hesitates, then slides the tapes across the counter towards Billy. “See you in two weeks, then.”

“It’s a date, pretty boy,” Billy huffs drily, and for a moment, just a moment, the old, slyly confident Billy Hargrove breaks through. A small grin twitches at the corner of his mouth and his eyes sparkle with dark humour.

Steve is so pleased to see that familiar look that he doesn’t even mind the dumb nickname that comes with it. He smiles back, wide and happy.

Then, just like that, the old Billy is gone again, and the hollowed-out shell that remains gathers up his tapes and silent walks out the door.

“Robin?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you think about Billy Hargrove?”

“Well, I like him a lot better now that he’s not possessed and trying to kill us. He’s not trying to kill us again, is he?”

“No, no…he isn’t. He’s fine, I guess. Well, not fine, obviously. I just…"

Silence falls, but Robin doesn't interject. Steve is a moron sometimes for sure, but if you give him time and space he's actually pretty on point once in a while. Besides, he's the one who started this conversation, wasting time as he avoids completing a stock check.

When it comes to Steve and his mental gymnastics, Robin just works here.

"He did try to kill me, once,” Steve says after a moment, thoughtful.

“Yeah, I know. I was there, remember?”

“No, I mean… I mean before. He was looking for Max and got upset when I tried to keep her from him – to be fair, we were dealing with more weird shit and I thought it would be better that way – and then he went after Lucas and it was this whole… whole thing…”

“And, what? He tried to kill you? How?”

“I don’t… I don’t think he meant to, really. I think he was… you know, I don’t even think he was seeing me anymore, after a while. He beat the shit out of me but it was also like he wasn't even aware. He was just wailing on me, punching me, even after I stopped fighting back. To be honest I blacked out for the end but Dustin said later it was like he was… just crazy. So crazy. Crying, I think. Max had to drug him to make him stop.”

“Jeesh. Wait, drugs?”

"A needle. We had a sedative for Will, back when he was going through his...thing."

"Uh... sure."

“Yeah.”

“Uhhh… well. I didn't know about all that, but... I guess he’s fine. He never bothered me before. He was in my advanced Lit class and he didn't talk much but when he was called he always knew the answers. I guess I can see where he'd have anger issues, kind of? He'd, like, poke people sometimes and needle them. Nothing too awful, though... it wasn't as bad as it could have been."

"Not as bad as being in class with me, then?" Steve asks wryly.

"Your predictable breakfast choices were your only crime, Harrington," Robin smirks. "And your total obliviousness."

"Sure."

"Anyway... I know he was dating Sherrie Paterson for like, two seconds, and they aren't together anymore but she seemed okay with him. He isn’t like one of those super-douche guys who secretly hates women, which is a plus. He actually defended her when Tommy was being an ass.”

“Right.”

"I heard from Marcie in band practice that Sherrie's friend Becky thought he might be gay, actually."

"What? Wait, _what?_ "

"Well, Becky's friend Tina caught him making out with a guy at a party, allegedly, but she was drunk and so were they, so who knows? And it's not a scientific fact so don't quote me on this but according to Becky nobody is that hot and hyper-macho and aggressive about it without being secretly gay."

"Excuse you, I'm that hot and macho. I'm, like, super macho."

"How long did you spend on your hair this morning, Steve?"

"That's not... that's not the point."

"You waxed rhapsodic about Rutger Hauer for twenty minutes yesterday. It was getting super awkward towards the end there."

"You made me watch _Blade Runner_! You forced me into it - I wanted to watch _Caddyshack_ and instead you made me watch _Blade Runner_! He's really cool in it... that's all!"

"I suppose you did beat up that Russian," Robin muses, enjoying Steve's sputtering.

"Damn right I did! I'm not... I mean... I don't think I am...?"

"And if you were, it wouldn't make any difference to me, Steve. You know that. And you know how I feel about stupid stereotypes. Maybe the point is that you don't need to attach labels to everything to understand it. Maybe you can just like what you like and it doesn't have to change who you are."

There is a long pause as Steve sucks in a deep breath, calming himself down and reorienting himself in more ways than one. It's not the first time this suggestion has crossed his mind, but now, with Robin levelling one of her patented unimpressed glares at him, those vague suppositions are suddenly taking on new definition.

"Yeah," he says finally. "I'm... yeah."

"Anyway, not the point. Point is, I don't know what Billy Hargrove is. Gay, straight, bisexual - no idea. Does it matter?"

"No. No. He was in here the other day and I just... no, I guess it doesn't matter all that much."

"Okay. Do you think he's going to try to kill us again?'

"No," Steve answers, quickly and firmly.

Robin raises an incredulous eyebrow and Steve's gaze darts away, flush creeping up his cheeks. He runs his hand through his hair distractedly.

"It's not... he's different. I guess. Than he was. Even... even with how he was before the Mind Flayer. He's different now. I don't think he's going to... I don't think he wants to hurt people. And there's something... sad about him now, and it..."

Steve's face twists into something weirdly miserable. Robin pauses, watching him, and then shrugs slightly.

"Makes sense. That was no picnic, what happened. If he's got friends and support, though, he should make a full recovery. Or so I hear."

"Sure," Steve says quietly, deciding not to enlighten Robin regarding what little he knows about the limited support Billy Hargrove might or might not have at his disposal.

Satisfied, Robin nods and goes back to shelving rom-coms while Steve contemplates ways to bring up the secret porn room existing in their place of work without admitting that he's already been back there. Then another thought occurs to him, and he grimaces.

"Robin?"

"What?"

"I don't... I don't do that to you, do I? Make you feel... like I'm labelling you, or whatever? With stereotypes? I wasn't trying to be... I don't make you feel that way, do I?"

Robin slides a copy of _Grease_ into its place on the self before turning and looking Steve dead in the eye.

"No, Steve. You don't. You scared the shit of me for all of five seconds when I first told you - and that's saying something given that we'd just nearly been killed escaping Russian spies. But then you were... you were great. You didn't make me feel that way... so don't make _yourself_ feel that way either, okay?"

"Yeah," Steve nods thoughtfully.

After a moment's contemplation he looks up, grins at Robin, and then shuffles back to his place behind the register.

_Yeah._

Somewhat enlightened by his conversation with Robin - though not nearly enough to touch upon a number of thorny issues he is deliberately avoiding thinking about - Steve tries to put Billy Hargrove out of his mind as much as possible.

It’s easy enough to do, although when he sees the kids again he does make a point of asking Max how Billy is doing.

She gives him a look that is a little incredulous and very tired, as well as the requisite non-answer answer. Then she asks if he’d mind buying cigarettes for her for Billy, and he buys a whole carton without protest and uses his own money to do so.

He tries not to think too hard about why.

His personal penchant for denial notwithstanding, soon enough two weeks are up, and the beat-up Camaro pulls up in front of Family Home Video again.

Steve can see Billy flinch when he sees who’s behind the register - Steve is now trusted to work completely on his own on slow days, although the back room has not yet been mentioned by any of his coworkers - and to be honest Steve himself feels utterly unprepared for what promises to be an extraordinarily awkward interaction.

He eyes up Mrs. Mankey as he hands her her stack of action movies and wishes her a good rest of her day, glad that she's on her way out. Hopefully the store will stay quiet enough for the two boys to avoid any further embarrassment. 

At least the blonde, apparently deciding that ripping the band-aid off is the best strategy, doesn't hesitate overlong before stepping up to the front desk.

“I…” Billy starts, swallowing heavily as he places the tapes on the counter. “I need another two weeks.”

That was not what Steve was expecting. He looks down at the videos, looks back up at Billy, and puts the set of work keys he'd been fingering nervously back into his pocket.

“Uh… another two weeks?”

Billy just glares at the tapes like they have personally offended him and says nothing.

“That good, huh?” Steve tries to joke just to break the silent tension.

“I don’t know,” Billy huffs, frustrated. “I haven’t seen them. My stepmom’s been home. She keeps going out and then… then coming back unexpectedly. Weeks of avoiding the house like the plague and then she suddenly decides to pull this shit on me. I can’t…”

The blonde breaks off abruptly and closes his eyes, jaw clenching.

"Are you... okay?" Steve asks hesitantly. 

Billy lets out a fierce, huffing breath.

Then, he slams his fist down on the counter.

Steve jumps, startled by the unexpected display, air leaving his lungs abruptly. He feels a sharp stab of something like fear, flashes back to the last time Billy used his fury and his fists on him.

Steve then is thrown even more when, instead of beating Steve to a pulp, Billy bows his head and lets out a sound that is dangerously close to a choked sob.

"No," Billy hisses, eyes still clenched tight. " _No_. I need... I just need..." 

The fist goes flat, presses against the counter as Billy hunches over, shoulders trembling as he tries to hold back what Steve strongly suspects are tears - of misery, of frustration, of pain. The blonde shrinks in on himself, dragging in ragged breaths as though they are the only thing keeping him together.

Steve sucks in his own tiny gasp and something inside of him clenches. 

Now, Steve still isn’t 100% sure what he thinks of Billy. As he told Robin, Billy tried to kill him twice, has never been particularly kind or approachable, and used to give off every kind of negative vibe that Steve has learned to loathe.

But Billy is, also… well, he’s _Billy_.

He’s the guy you love to hate – the unexpectedly important word there being ‘love’. He’s big, he’s loud, he’s fearless, he’s… he’s beautiful.

Steve can admit that to himself. Billy is like the sun, with an irresistible orbit even when it hurts to look at him. Bright and charismatic, the embodiment of an ideal. He’s supposed to be fierce and free and cool and gorgeous and confident.

He’s not supposed to be timid and frustrated and miserable. And yet, even these new and unexpected traits touch something in Steve, stir something inside that begs for self-expression.

Because Steve… Steve’s been there before. He has been the golden child, the keg king, the team captain. He knows what it's like for people to look at you and not see beyond what they expect you to be.

He has been the asshole, the bully. He took all that emptiness and superficiality and secret pain and stupid power and weaponized it, turned it against people who didn't deserve it.

And he has also been a nobody. A nothing.

He spent the half the summer slinging ice cream in a goddamn sailor’s suit for Christ sakes.

More than that… he’s been friendless. He’s been abandoned by his parents, by his social clique, by his girlfriend. He’s been left behind before. Sure, he has friends now, great friends, real friends… but he remembers what it’s like.

(And he knows very well what it is like to be unable to sleep.)

There’s a look in Billy’s eyes that is very familiar to Steve. He used to see it all the time in the mirror.

He doesn’t like seeing it in Billy.

“I have a VHS player,” he blurts out suddenly, unthinkingly.

Billy drags in a grating breath and looks at him blankly, distantly incredulous. The misery in his face shifts, morphs into something like anger.

“Two, actually," Steve fumbles. "I… my parents gave me one for my room. For my birthday. So… one upstairs, one downstairs.”

Billy’s flat mouth curls into a faint echo of the old derisive sneer he used to give.

Even this sad shadow is enough to make Steve cringe inwardly.

“Rubbing it in, rich boy?” Billy huffs, blinking back the tears and sadness and replacing them with a superficial performance of aggression. It's a familiar role to play and he falls into is with ease.

“No!" Heady fear and confusion are creeping back in. _Oh shit, pull it together_. "What I mean is… you can use it. My VHS player. It’s… you can use it if you need… privacy.”

Just like that it is like someone popped the tension between the two boys like a delicate balloon. Billy looks at Steve for a long moment, mouth dropping open slightly and something decidedly close to shock dancing across his face.

Embarrassed, Steve ducks his head slightly, and he knows he's going red in the cheeks again.

“I didn’t mean…” Steve starts, shakes his head, curses himself inwardly for his lack of smoothness and tact. “I wasn’t trying to be a dick, I’m sorry. I wasn’t rubbing it in. I know… believe me, anything nasty you can say about me and my stupid rich parents has already been said. I just… you can use it. You can have it, even. It’s no problem. I don’t really watch movies that much, so...”

Billy snorts, recovering slightly. He tilts his head and goes a bit wry around the mouth.

“You work in a video store, Harrington.”

His voice is still a bit shaky at the edges but it seems to be gaining strength. That's good. Maybe...

“I know.” Relieved at the slight easing of tension in Billy’s stance, Steve sighs in faux-defeat and grins slightly. “Robin and Keith are trying to educate me. Keith never forgave me for saying one of my favorite movies is _Fast Times_ and then breaking the display by accident. He called me ‘irredeemably lowbrow’. Every day is a new insult in good old Family Home Video.”

Billy, weirdly, doesn’t seem put off by the conversation. If anything, he seems less fragile and fractured and more interested than he has at any point previously, so Steve decides to keep going, play it up a bit.

He can play the class clown if that helps.

“I go over to Robin’s to watch movies because she has a lot of them on tape,” he says, adopting a more relaxed posture and tone. “She buys them from this weird indie store, and she’s got all these ones in other languages with and without subtitles because she’s like this word genius. She made me watch this one Swedish thing, _Persona_ , which I didn’t understand at all – she said it was by Bergman and I thought we were watching _Casablanca_ or something like that! And then there was this other one, _La Cage aux Fo..._ erm... _Folles_ , yeah, which was French but still good. There were subtitles for that at least.”

“ _La Cage aux Folles_ , huh?” Billy murmurs thoughtfully.

Belatedly, Steve recognizes a potential pitfall, curses himself in his head. Jeesh, he hears one rumor about Billy maybe being gay and suddenly he's completely throwing caution to the wind.

Robin is right. He's an idiot.

Uncertain about what Billy’s position on this is - and there is a very real possibility that any minute now Billy may take offence, may show derision or even rage - but determined not to give an inch, he straightens. He braces himself, ready to take the slur whenever Billy choses to throw it.

“Yeah,” he says with admirable firmness, gazing warily back at the blonde. “Yeah, that was it. I really liked it a lot. Great movie.”

He says it as a dare, as someone who is questioning his own thoughts and feelings a lot these days and refuses to apologize for it. As someone who has searched his own heart and found it strangely open and not at all wanting.

More importantly, he says it as someone with a friend whom he will protect with everything in him.

If Billy wants to call him names and call his sexuality into question in some brutal macho contest of wills that’s fine, but the most important thing now is protecting Robin.

He will not allow any slights or insults against her.

However, Billy does not stiffen or sneer. He doesn't call Steve a name, or threaten retribution.

Instead, he slides his gaze away, chewing on his lower lip, and then returns it, curious, to Steve's face.

“You… you ever see _The Boys in the Band_?” Billy asks, quietly. “Or, uh… anything by John Waters?”

Steve blinks once. Twice. Then his mouth spreads into a grin.

“No, I haven’t. Um… are they good?”

Billy shakes his head, almost amused. He looks so tired. Too tired, to Steve’s eyes. “Yeah. Not sure you’ll be able to find them in a Hawkins video store but yeah, pretty boy, they’re alright.”

“Maybe… maybe I can get Robin to find copies. Would… I mean…” Steve takes a deep breath and plunges in feet first. “If she can find them, would you like to see them? With… me? Us?”

Billy sucks a deep breath in, uncertainty and fear and just a little unnamable thing - not hope exactly, but something like the seeds of hope - warring on his face.

Because no one has asked him to share his time with them like this... not for a long time. And Billy, to his chagrin, finds that actually he does want to watch special, important movies with Steve. Maybe even with his friend, Robin. That sounds so... nice. Peaceful. Perfect, almost.

Impossible.

Steve swallows past something stuck in his throat. He can feel Billy almost pulling away right now and he knows in his gut that he can't let that happen. He’s not going to panic right now.

Thinking never does him any good so he’s just going to go on instinct. That strategy has definitely worked out for him so far with absolutely no negative consequences.

And… fuck, if he’s reading this all wrong, at least he offered. At least he is trying to be a friend to somebody who needs it and who, maybe, isn't quite the super-asshole he thought he was.

If anyone could use a friend it’s Billy fucking Hargrove.

“Keep the videos,” Steve says abruptly, making the decision for both of them before they can overthink it. “I get off at four. Come over to my house when you can any time after that. My parents are going to be gone all week for a work thing so there won't be anyone there but me. I can put the TV and VCR in the guest bedroom and I’ll stay downstairs. All night, if you want. You can have the room all night.”

"You're serious," Billy asks, still unable to quite wrap his head around this. "You're... you're offering... you do know what I'm planning on doing while I watch these tapes, right pretty boy?"

Steve splutters and goes an even deeper shade of red.

"Yeah, of course I do, Jesus," he mutters, ducking his head and shooting an embarrassed grin up at the blonde.

"I tried to kill you," Billy says bluntly, and Steve has to bury a flinch before the other boy catches it. "Even before... I kicked the shit out of you."

Yeah, there is that. Maybe Steve really is an idiot for doing this.

Robin's going to have a field day when he tells her.

"I..." Steve sighs. "You really fucked me up, you know that? But I get it, kind of. Things were so messy and... I'm over it. We... the people who know... we've got to stick together, you know? We're the only ones who know about what really happen this summer and even if we weren't... we're cool, man. You and me. Besides, I've had worse. Recently, in fact. I know this might come as a blow to your ego, Hargrove, but you're not the biggest monster out there."

The minute the words are out Steve wants to kick himself. Really? _He_ is saying this to _Billy_?! He can almost feel Robin and Dustin together face-palming from afar.

For a long moment a tense silence floats between the two young men, the heavy weight of their shared past and trauma teetering on a razor's edge, ready to tip either way. Make or break.

Then, finally, Billy huffs out a small, barely-there laugh.

"Jeesh, Harrington," he shakes his head, bemused. "Yeah, no shit."

"No shit," Steve echoes, a grin tugging on the corners of his mouth.

"And you still...?"

"Yes," Steve interrupts, that determined stance creeping back into his shoulders. "Yeah. I'm still offering. Come over and we can hang out, or not... no judgment. Honestly. You can just go straight upstairs if you want, and I won't bother you. I'll get a pizza and you can stay as long as you want and... fuck's sake, Billy, of course I know what you're going to be doing! But I understand. Really, I do. More than you know. And this way it'll be private and..." 

Steve bites his lip and throws Billy a look that Billy can't read. It's a look that is weirdly knowing, utterly empathetic, terribly vulnerable and raw. 

"I'll stay downstairs and nobody will interrupt. You know? It'll be safe. I'll... you know. You won't have to worry. You'll be _safe_."

Oh.

_Oh._

Something incredibly important clicks in Billy's brain.

Yeah. Wasn't that it? Wasn't that the thing, the reason, the problem Billy didn't want to admit to himself?

_It's not safe. I don't feel safe. I never feel safe, now._

_Too vulnerable. Too scared. Too exposed._

_Close my eyes and it all comes back. Close my eyes and I don't know what will be there when I open them again. I don't know if I'll be back in that dark, terrible basement when I open them again._

_I can't relax enough and I can't rest and I can't let myself go. I can't touch myself and let go because... because it isn't safe._

But this time Steve will be there, downstairs, while Billy takes time to relearn his body, to pleasure himself in peace.

Billy should beat Steve up for this, for these sweeping assumptions, for even suggesting that Billy might be struggling because he is scared. For redefining Billy as the one in need of care and protection. For taking that 'tough guy' identity that Billy uses as a shield and comprehensively blowing it to bits.

Except he's not blowing it to bits, is he? He's looking at him with eyes big with honesty and understanding - and not pity. Not condescension. Like he knows and he doesn't think less of Billy and he's still willing to provide cover because what Billy needs isn't terrible or humiliating or wrong. 

Like he doesn't think less of Billy for this. If anything, there is something shining in Steve's eyes that mirrors the gentle glow of hope growing in Billy's chest.

Billy trusts Steve, weirdly, and maybe he shouldn't. Maybe that's a completely stupid thing to do, given their history. Maybe this is all a setup, a precursor to Steve's long-term revenge.

But Billy doesn't think so. Steve isn't like that. He doesn't know Steve that well, but he does know that Steve isn't like that.

Billy is tired, and alone, at the end of his rope - and he trusts Steve's offer of sanctuary because Steve knows about all these horrible monsters, and also he's a secret badass, a bruised angel willing to crash cars and throw fireworks and swing baseball bats. He knows what's out there, knows what Billy fears, and he doesn't think it's stupid or pathetic that Billy is afraid.

Of course he doesn't - he's seen the face of it, too. Billy doesn't have to justify himself. He doesn't have to explain it, any of it, to Steve.

Steve will keep Billy safe.

No parents.

No interruptions.

No monsters coming in and getting him the moment he closes his eyes.

Billy swallows heavily and feels a flicker of his old self flash to life again.

“I feel like you’re propositioning me," he says, "but if you are it’s the weirdest offer I’ve ever had.”

A surprised laugh rips out unbidden from Steve’s throat and the answering grin on Billy's face is worth absolutely everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, true and funny story - back when video rental stores were still a thing there was this tiny independent one in my (fairly tiny) hometown, and if you asked the manager and were over 18 there was a real, honest to God, super-secret back room behind the counter full of porn videos you could rent.
> 
> I have no idea if it was legal or ethical or what-have-you - mostly because it was so obviously hidden and not advertised and not something anyone was supposed to talk about, so you felt like it had to be illegal somehow - but the teen boys in the neighborhood were always trying to get an adult to rent something for them. It was also a hilarious game to see who was in the know about it and who had no idea it was back there... I never saw it for myself personally but I heard about it from friends. It was probably the worst kept secret in town until the store finally closed, about the same time the Blockbusters up the street died and Netflix became a thing.
> 
> So, this kind of option for Billy? It's based in fact!!
> 
> A note on the films mentioned: "Persona" has a lot of homoerotic subtext and "La Cage Aux Folles" is a very famous comedy later remade into the "The Birdcage" with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. John Waters films are famously camp and outrageous, and while the "The Boys in the Band" gets some mixed reviews in the LGBTQ community I think Billy would probably be completely fascinated with any film that depicted homosexual relationships. Also, not loads of obvious queer films to choose from pre-1980s, although if you have any recommendations please let me know!
> 
> Next chapter: Billy finally gets to beat the meat!
> 
> Kudos and comments are always much loved, as are you guys! Stay safe and healthy! <3


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